Drug war loses again at the ballot box

One of the most encouraging signs from the Nov. 6 election were the decisions by voters in Colorado and Washington state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, just the latest examples of average Americans having a better grasp of economics, the U.S. Constitution and common sense than government officials.

Federal officials spend more than $40 billion a year prosecuting the drug war, according to a recent Wall Street Journal column by University of Chicago economists Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize winner, and Kevin Murphy. That war does little more than enrich drug traffickers, who benefit from the Prohibition-style policies that drive up the cost of illicit drugs and, thus, increase profits and reward the most ruthless cartels.

The time is right for the current administration to heed this reality check.

Furthermore, drug-war policies have inflated both prison populations and prison budgets, the economists explain. These policies also wreak havoc on inner cities: “Many factors explain the high dropout rates, especially bad schools and weak family support. But another important factor in inner-city neighborhoods is the temptation to drop out of school in order to profit from the drug trade.”

The drug war also has resulted in increasingly militarized police departments, with a resulting erosion of civil liberties as authorities treat a social issue as if it were a military campaign. Unfortunately, federal officials seem unlikely to follow any sensible advice.

The president is gearing up to fight the will of voters in Colorado and Washington, just as he has been fighting California voters who approved, overwhelmingly, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 (Proposition 215). “Marijuana use in both states continues to be illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act,” reported the New York Times. “One option is to sue the states on the grounds that any effort to regulate marijuana is pre-empted by federal law.”

This should confound liberal voters, who tend to support efforts to decriminalize marijuana, and conservative voters, who want the federal government to respect the states-rights provisions in the 10th Amendment.

Unfortunately, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have stepped up the drug war, convinced that they can stamp out drug addiction and its related ills by throwing government money at them. But the “war on drugs” hasn't worked any better than the “war on poverty” or any other government-sponsored war on social ills. It hasn't worked any better than the original Prohibition, intended 90 years ago to stamp out alcohol use.

“A study published in 2010 in the British Journal of Criminology found that, in Portugal, since decriminalization, imprisonment on drug-related charges has gone down; drug use among young persons appears to have increased only modestly, if at all; visits to clinics that help with drug addictions and diseases from drug use have increased; and opiate-related deaths have fallen,” Becker and Murphy wrote, rebutting the idea that ending the drug war will lead to societal mayhem.

The economists see the Colorado and Washington votes as baby steps toward that more sensible decriminalization option. Let's hope that they are right, regardless of how poorly the Obama administration reacts to the most-recent votes.

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.